The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has recommended that France “urgently supply the population of Guadeloupe with drinking water”. The recommendation has international significance in acknowledging drinking water as a core element of the right to a safe environment and setting a precedent for compensating communities whose water has been chemically contaminated. The Committee also concluded that France should “grant redress and compensation to all children harmed, in particular children affected by chlordecone”, a toxic pesticide that was used on banana plantations even after being banned in 1993.
The recommendations were garnered by legal professional and human rights defender Sabrina Cajoly. Cajoly credits the #HearingTheUnheardHRWS campaign with complementing her advocacy efforts. Since the UN Water Conference in March, Cajoly has used video testimony from the campaign in reports and follow-up initiatives to bring the struggle for safe water in Guadeloupe to international attention. In the video Lucile Témoignage shares her experience of poor water quality and availability both at home and at the hospital where her young daughter requires intense treatment for a rare disease. You can watch Lucile’s testimony along with Hearing the Unheard videos from 17 other countries on our YouTube channel.
Cajoly recently started a petition for France to implement the CRC recommendations ahead of the country’s examinations by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in October. You can sign the petition here and follow Cajoly on LinkedIn for further updates.
The CESCR’s upcoming examination has also prompted a wider civil society call for France to fulfil its human rights obligations at home and abroad. In May the UN’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) issued a series of recomendations to improve water access for people living in overseas territories as well as migrants and refugees who face inhumane and degrading conditions in mainland France. Please sign this petition urging the French government to accept the UPR recommendations.
